Nobody's going to forge a ball like that. I don't even have to see it to know it's real.

I used the word significant rather than valuable for a reason. As if I or my coach or anyone else would sit down and practice over 20 signatures, some quite obscure, to create a forgery.

I found it a few months ago and it has sat on my desk and I was guessing at a lot of the names and I like holding it. I recognized Oh, Killebrew (a great hitter), Snider, Minoso, Campaneris and a few others. But last week, in another box for some reason, I found the list that came with the ball. Now they are easily identified. I will give it away one day hopefully to someone who might get the same feeling I get when I hold it... a connection to some players from the past. Perhaps the only connection between all of these guys is that they were all in Japan in 1989. I'm not a collector and I don't really like pristine things kept in sealed glass containers.

I also have an 1865 Lincoln penny I found in my English house some years back. It is very worn but you can see the date. Worthless to a collector but it is in my valuables box. When I look at it I think about the era and who could have held it, spent it, or left it in a house in England.